Saturday, April 16: Antrim sort-of-5K

Bagged the first "new" town this season today: Antrim, N.H., a small community in the southwestern part of the state where a family and church organized a road race to benefit a local woman suffering from Multiple Sclerosis.

Like many communities, Antrim has put up nice signs welcoming visitors. They look fairly new; a picture of one on Route 202 is included here. Another sign, this one on Route 31, is tough shape after the long winter. I can't imagine what would cause such a huge chunk of a wooden sign to go missing like that, with no evidence on the ground of broken wood or splinters. Maybe someone doesn't want you feeling so welcome in Antrim after all.

But I certainly felt welcome, arriving early (for once) and forking over a $20 bill as my donation. No set fees on this, a nice gesture in the age of $30 registration fees, as I saw last week in Nashua. A friend of mine with kids said it cost him $135 to participate! But registration inflation is a whole other topic.

Cold this morning! In the low 30s when I headed out, but it's mid-April and the prospect of sunny skies led me to just do the T-shirt and running shorts thing. Usually my cut-off temperature for "summer wear" is 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

But by race time, the temperature hadn't budged, and a wind had kicked up to boot. I decided to still tough it out, but only one other guy in the field had bare legs.

The race was preceded by comments from a son of the woman who is afflicted by MS. He did a good job thanking everyone (they've raised $16,000 so far to help her) and couldn't help breaking down a couple of times. It was great to see such genuine emotion expressed so openly.

I was also surprised to hear that a live rock band had been assembled to pump up runners at the finish line, which was near the Antrim Town Hall some distance away. Even so, the emcee said the musicians were ready to start, and we'd be able to hear them throughout the run. "So I guess there won't be too many people in Antrim sleeping late this morning," he said, or words to that effect.

The start (of the race, not the music) was on a side road right next to the Antrim Church of Christ, which I gathered the family belonged to. Organizers took a photo of the woman with MS (who was in a wheelchair) before us at the starting line, and next thing you know, off we went.

It was a nicely laid out course, heading west from the town center on lightly travelled back roads that climbed rolling hills until about the halfway point, then back down on a parallel road, so it had a satisfying up-and-down feel to it. And because of an acoustical quirk perhaps related to the shape of the valley (and maybe the cold air), you really could hear the band blasting away back at the town.

One thing I like about running in towns like Antrim is that I get to see parts of towns I otherwise wouldn't know about. If all you know of Antrim is what you see when you roll through town on Route 202, with its churches and convenience stores, it's pleasant enough, but you only see a very thin slice of the community.

We came back into town on Forest Street, which to my surprise is lined with substantial older homes that must date back to the days when Antrim was a prosperous manufacturing community. It looked like neighbhorhoods in Concord, or in Nashua's North End. What a pleasant discovery! And kudos to organizers for taking the trouble to string a tape across the finish line for everyone who completed the course -- first time I've ever seen that.

However, on the down side, organization pretty hap-hazard. For intsance: No mile markers, water station on the wrong side of the road, course water in the form of plastic bottles with sealed caps. None a biggie by itself, but it made you wonder about some bigger issues.

Like length. Coming back into town, it seemed longer than 5K. Sure enough, when I finished, the time noted on a clipboard was "35:02," a really sub-par result for me. So I hopped in the car and drove the course, and sure enough, it was 3.6 miles. (A 5K is 3.1 miles exactly.) C'mon, people! I know it's a "fun run" for a good cause, but when you tell us it's a 5K, that's really what it should be. The racing phrase "and they're off" should not come into play when we're talking about distance.

Well, 5K or 3.6-miler, it was Town #113 and a nice way to start collecting communities in 2011.

20 towns and counting...

Okay, the count as of now is a total of 20 New Hampshire cities, towns or unincorporated places in which I have yet to run are holding road races this season. They range from the Goffstown Gallop (next town over from Bedford, where I live) to a running/biking duathalon on Wildcat Mountain.

And none of them are half-marathons, though I may be tempted to try the New Hampshire Marathon in October (which covers five towns, by the way) and also the Dixville Notch half-marathon in the fall, details of which haven't been posted yet.

So, barring injury, 2011 could be a big year for the 234 Challenge. Right now I'm up to 112, I think (not sure, got to check the records), but if so, then that means the half-way point (Town #117) is coming up fast, after 11 years of doing this.

Stay tuned. And, fool that I am, I'm about to buy a new bicycle after wrecking the last one in an accident last year. So pray for my soul.

Sunday, April 10: Nashua Soup Kitchen 10K

And we're off! First race of the 2011 season today, a 10K to support the Nashua (N.H.) Soup Kitchen. Did Nashua a loooong time ago but some friends were doing this one and it was a lovely day, so why not? Even though I'd spent an hour in the gym this morning, I showed up at Rivier College and signed up for the 10K. (There was also a 5K, but it was too nice a day to not go the full distance.)

Not a bad race. Finished in 1:02:09, 126 out of 169, for a pace of 10:01. I felt strong enough throughout to think I could break the one-hour mark, a rarity for me lately, but it just wasn't enough.

Still, I think I was motivated by running past the homes of people I knew in high school, which spurred me to run just a bit more quickly. Also, came across a blind guy running the race between miles 5 and 6, being led by a seeing eye dog and making a solid go of it. He really couldn't see: he was asking people if he was on the sidewalk or the road, and at one point nearly turned his ankle when he caught it on a curb.

I would have stood by but another guy was helping him negotiate South Main Street and my pace was a little faster, so I just kept going.

Next up is a new town: Antrim, where there's a 5K on Saturday, April 16. See you there!

Preparing for the 2011 season

Okay, I've just returned from a trek to Annapurna Base Camp in the Nepali Himalayas, so no excuses back here at home. Time to get organized for 2011.

To that end, I've just looked over the calendar and found 10 races in towns that I haven't done before. I've posted them on the 'Coming in 2011' page, which is a place for me to stay organized.

There will be more, I hope. Things are pretty thin in the early months, but there's a brace of obscure towns (Brentwood, Epsom) in August, which also includes my first triathalon, which takes place in Surry.

Yes, it's a baby one (.25 mile swim, eight-mile bike ride, 3.1-mile road) but sounds doable for the likes of me. I haven't been swimming much so we'll see how close I come to drowning.

The challenge will be to sandwich races (and practice runs) into a busy schedule of silent film screenings and also hikes to get our soon-to-start-aging German shepard up to the peaks of as many N.H. 4,000-footers as possible. (She has, I think, done 17 of the 48.)

Plus there's the bike. With gas pushing $4 a gallon, last night it took me $50 to fill up the Subaru. (Welcome home!) So I'll be using it more around town, and would like to get in a few longer bike rides, too -- coming home from York, Maine would be a good one before the Memorial Bridge in Portsmouth is closed for demolition and replacement later this year, I think.

And then there's the day job. :)

Also, since Nepal, I've embarked on a slow but steady effort to remake my eating habits. The big crime is generally stress eating, and that's so deeply ingrained that changing it will be a major task. For now, I've been working on small steps to gradually steer the ship in a new direction.

- While in Nepal, I had my last-ever Coca-Cola: a glass bottle of Coke made with sugar (not high fructose corn syrup) at the top of a mountain pass after a two-hour climb in the heat of mid-day. It will never get any better than that, so why try?

- After getting back, I could see myself making frequent use of a large stash of chocolate that's accumulated in the kitchen candy basket. Instead, I just swore it off. No more chocolate. It's never enough, and it leaves me feeling lousy later on, so that's that.

- Also since getting back, I've tried to limit myself to one dessert per day. That's going to be tough, so let's see how far into April I can get.

But barring injury or other misfortune, I'm ready to make 2011 a good year here in the chronicles of the 234 and log a good amount of new towns. See you at the starting line!